With Reference to Reference 0915145529, 0915145537

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WITH REFERENCE TO REFERENCE

WITH REFERENCE TO REFERENCE

CATHERINE

Z.

ELGIN

with a Foreword by Nelson Goodman

HACKETT PUBLISHING COMPANY Indianapolis • Cambridge

Copyright © 1983 by Catherine Z. Elgin All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Design by James N. Rogers

For further information, please address Hackett Publishing Company. Box 44937, Indianapolis, Indiana 46204

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Elgin, Catherine Z., 1948With reference to reference. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Reference (Philosophy) 2. Goodman, Nelson. I. Title. B105.R25E43 1982 160 82-15488 ISBN 0-915145-52-9 ISBN 0-915145-53-7 (pbk.)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreu·ord ..........................1 Prej�,ce ...........................3

I PROBLEM AND PROJECT ........5 1. The Subject ....................5

2. Roads Not Taken ...............10

II ON DENOTING ................19 1. Denotation .................... 19

2. Complications ..................23

3. Predication .................... 29

4. Projection ..................... 35

5. System ....................... 37

III LABELING LABELS .............43 1. Fictive Labels ..................43 2. Counterfactuals ................50

3. Likeness of Meaning ............ 54

IV METAPHOR ....................59 1. Metaphorical Denotation .........59

2. Metaphorical Systems ...........61

3. Metaphorical Truth .............65

4. Metaphor as Cognitive ..........68

V EXEMPLIFICATION .............71 1. Samples .......................7 1 2. Exemplificational Reference .......7 3

3. Interpretation ..................78

4. Exemplification in the Arts ....... 81

5. Exemplification in the Sciences ....87

6. Exemplification in Ethics ......... 90 7. Learning from Experience ........93 Vil

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CONTENTS VI THE STRUCTURES OF SYSTEMS .......................97 1. Syntax ........................97

2. Semantics ....................101

3. Notations ....................104

4. Works .......................113

5. Exemplificational Systems .......121

VI I QUOTATION ..................127 1. Verbal Quotation ..............12 7

2. Pictorial Quotation .............131

3. Musical Quotation .............134

VII I COMPLEX AND INDIRECT

REFERENCE ...................141 1. Representation-As .... .........141 2. Allusion .......... ...... .....142

3. Metaphorical Likening ..........146

IX ABOUT 'ABOUT' ..............155 1. Preliminaries ..................155 2. Absolutely About ..............158

3. Relatively About ..............163

4. Rhetorically About .............165

5. Nominalist Reconstrual .........168

6. True About .. . ................169

7. Conclusion . ....... ...........179

X A DISCOURSE ON METHOD ...183

Index ..........................195

FOREWORD For some philosophers. the recognition that everything is relative and nothing certain is the end of the road. Philosophy becomes idle con­ versation. with truth replaced by whim or fashion. For others, such as Catherine Elgin. skepticism and relativism function rather as climate and stimulus not for seeking certified or exclusive truth or absolute reality but for constructing nonexclusive maps or versions or· visions to be judged-fallibly indeed-by the insight and understanding they provide. quite apart from any question of agreement with a unique and inaccessible World. This book is a study of how such maps and versions and visions, how texts and pictures and scores and samples and diagrams, function as symbols. Concerned rather with geography than with genesis, it offers a systematic analysis. a taxonomy, a vocabulary, of basic spe­ cies of reference. On the one hand, it bypasses such currently popular topics as the speech act. intention, and so-called "causal' and other theories of the roots of reference. and focusses on relations of refer­ ence. and relations between these relations, however they may be established. On the other hand. it covers important and often ne­ glected topics. transcending the too-frequent limitation of reference to literal verbal denotation by including in its scope reference both literal and figurative. linguistic and nonlinguistic, denotational and nondeno­ tational. direct and mediated. What matters here, of course, is not that all these types of relationship between symbols and symbolized be called ··reference·· but that all be considered together so that their common and their distinctive features can be discerned. Many ideas scattered through my own work have been incorpo­ rated here. but these have been supplemented, often rephrased and extended. and organized into a systematic whole. Since some of this development has resulted from continuing discussions between us, detailed attribution of credit is difficult, and Catherine Elgin has been overgenerous to me in this. Advances in science or philosophy often depend upon or consist in the fashioning of new and apt conceptual apparatus. The wide-ranging and novel taxonomy of reference set forth here makes possible the raising or reframing and the pointed investigation of many a sig­ nificant and stubborn question. Through recognition of the almost universally overlooked referential relation of exemplification and its interconnection with denotation and expression, along with the study of referential chains comprised of links of these three kinds. this book provides sensitive and illuminating ways of tracing the various modes of simple and complex symbolization. from literal description to allu­ sion of several kinds, in literary and other works. How statements, questions. commands, exclamations may ref er is the subject of a novel and fascinating discussion. The book also makes sense of, and

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FOREWORD

proposes an answer to, the urgent question, curiously avoided by lin­ guists, what features distinguish language as a special type of symbol system. And by providing a classification of types of symbol system and function, it can make for more significant experimental inquiry in psychology into interaction among certain skills and between be­ havior and physiology. Even beyond this, it contributes to the badly needed clarification of the much misunderstood kinships and contrasts between the sciences and the arts. Yet even so consequential a book, since it ignores the faded Great Issues of philosophy, since it is less concerned with deciding any familiar philosophical dispute than with constructing an effective con­ ceptual apparatus, since it does not even claim that this apparatus is exclusively right, and since it seems to treat more of symbols than of worlds, may put the reader off guard. The subversive power of a radi­ cal reorganization of categories should not be underestimated. Readers must be warned that the prescription offered here may have severe side-effects, including drastic disorientation. June I 8, I 982

Nelson Goodman

PREFACE Reference is a popular subject in contemporary philosophy. Hence, in setting out to write about it one confronts a vast array of material on a wide range of related (often very distantly related) topics. Disagree­ ments abound-not only over which theory is ultimately correct, but also over what problems a theory of reference should be expected to solve. what methods of analysis it can legitimately employ, and what criteria of adequacy it should satisfy. It would be instructive, perhaps, to investigate the various extant theories and evaluate their relative strengths and weaknesses. I have not done so. Instead, I have chosen to articulate and extend a single account-one that can be found scat­ tered through the works of Nelson Goodman. What results seems to me to be a powerful system that answers important questions and satisfies reasonable constraints. In writing this book I have accumulated the usual debts of grat­ itude. These should be acknowledged even if they cannot be repaid. My intellectual debt to Nelson Goodman is evident on every page. Equally great. if not equally obvious, is my personal debt to him. His kindness and encouragement made the task less daunting� his rigorous standards and acute criticism made the result less flawed. Manifestly, any errors that remain should be attributed to him. I also want to thank Jonathan Adler who read the entire manuscript and argued with me about most of it. As usual, my work is better for the critical attention he accords it. Ann Lear has my gratitude for her careful preparation of the manu­ script. and for giving me unexpected and valuable editorial assistance besides. The manuscript was completed during the 1981-1982 academic year when I held an Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellowship at Har­ vard. I am grateful to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for its sup­ port and to the Harvard University philosophy department for its hospitality. Finally. I want to thank my husband, Jim Elgin, to whom the book is dedicated. I do not know enough about symbols to know how to express all that I owe to him.

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NOTE The following abbreviations are used throughout the text to refer to Goodman's various works: [FFF]

[LA] [MM]

[PP] [RR]

[TAJ] [WOW]

Fact, Fiction and Forecast, second edition, Harvard University Press, 1983.

Languages of Art, second edition, Hackett Publishing Company, 1976.

.. Metaphor as Moonlighting," Critical Inquiry 6 ( 1979), pp. 125-130.

Problems and Projects, Hackett Publishing Company, 1972.

.. Routes of Reference," Critical Inquiry 8 (1981), pp. 121-132.

.. Truth About Jones," (with Joseph Ullian), The Journal of Philosophy 74 (1977), pp. 317-338.

Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett Publishing Company, 1978.

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I

PROBLEM AND PROJECT

I. THE SUBJECT A theory of reference should identify and characterize the relations between a language (or. more broadly, a symbol system) and its ob­ jects. and explain the ways the language functions in or contributes to our understanding of those objects. Literature and the fine arts, as well as science and '"common sense" contribute to our understanding of the world and our place in it. To account for our understanding then. a theory of reference should comprehend the metaphorical as well as the literal. the fictive as well as the factual, the expressive as well as the descriptive. And it should relate linguistic symbols to such nonlinguistic symbols as diagrams, pictures, and musical scores. In what follows. I set forth a theory that does just that. My account has its source in the works of Nelson Goodman. I follow him in taking denotation and exemplification to be basic modes of reference, and in taking much of semantics-including the interpretation of fictive, figurative, and expressive language-to involve reference by some symbols to others. Indeed, my project is largely a matter of integra­ ting, systematizing. and extending Goodman's various remarks about reference. I show that they can serve as the basis for a comprehensive general theory that avoids many of the pitfalls of currently popular accounts. Although the explications of the basic devices will be famil­ iar to those acquainted with Goodman's work, much of what I have to say about their application is new. My discussions of the interpreta­ tion of metaphors and allusions, of fictions and counterfactuals, of mathematical theorems, scientific theories, and ethical treatises reveal something of the scope and power of this constellation of semantic devices. Many of Goodman's remarks about reference occur in the context of discussions of aesthetics. He contends, however, that his semantic categories have important applications beyond the aesthetic realm. I show this contention to be correct. One of the results of my study is that we cannot hope to draw sharp disciplinary boundaries along semantic lines. Contrary to popular opinion, the vocabulary of the sciences is not exclusively literal, factual, and descriptive; nor is that of the arts exclusively metaphorical, fictional, and expressive. But it is not my purpose here to anticipate the results of my investi­ gation. Instead, I want to say something about the nature of the prob­ lems I seek to solve and the constraints on an adequate solution. Ref­ erence is a popular subject in the philosophy of language. But there is little agreement about what its important problems are and perhaps 5

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P ROB L E M A N D P ROJ ECT

even less agreement about how they are to be solved. Thus, it seems advisable to identify the ones with which I am concerned and to lo­ cate my account in the context of other contemporary discussions of reference. A context is extensional if and only if any substitution of coref­ erential expressions for its terms preserves the truth values of the original sentences. Predicative, truth-functional and quantificational contexts are extensional, for what matters in an extensional context is (roughly) what you say, not how you say it. Other contexts-such as modal, mental, metaphorical, and fictional contexts-are frequently held to be intensional. For, it is maintained, in these contexts what matters is not what objects are referred to, but how they are referred to. identified, or described. Accordingly. in such contexts inter­ substitutability salva veritate does not normally obtain. Coreferential terms that differ in intensionally relevant respects cannot be freely substituted for one another. The truth value of a sentence depends on what its objects are. Thus. if we are to construe certain contexts as intensional, we require a way of individuating objects that is more restrictive than inter­ substitutability salva veritate. In The Merchant of Venice Bassanio believes that Portia is his wife. But he does not believe that Balthasar is his wife, for he does not realize that Balthasar is Portia. The prob­ lem is to develop a semantic account according to which ·Portia· and · Balthasar' are not intersubstitutable here. but which nevertheless re­ lates the use of· Portia· and · Balthasar' in the statement of Bassanio · s belief to the character Portia. The semantical issue is further compli­ cated by the fact that The M